Southern Door football team primed to tab Ryan Zuehlke as new head coach

The co-owner of the Door County Destroyers semipro football team is putting himself in line for another gridiron challenge.

Ryan Zuehlke, 39, is on the verge of being named head coach of the Southern Door High School football team, a three-time defending league champion.

His hiring was on the agenda of the Southern Door School Board on Monday night, but the meeting was canceled because of the unexpected lack of a quorum, Superintendent Patti Vickman said.

The board meeting has been rescheduled for April 16. The board will deal with the same list of business, Vickman said, meaning Zuehlke remains the final candidate for the job and just awaits confirmation.

Zuehlke could not be reached for comment Tuesday morning.

He would take over an Eagles team that's been to the WIAA playoffs four straight seasons and won the Packerland Conference back-to-back in 2015-16, then achieved a school-first three-peat by taking the newly merged Packerland/Northern Lakes/M&O Large last fall.

The 2016 squad finished undefeated in the regular season for the first time in program history and reached the second round of the playoffs, earning a final record of 10-1.

The coaching vacancy was created when Pat McCarty stepped down because he plans to campaign for Door County sheriff this summer and fall, seeking to replace his retiring current boss, Sheriff Steve Delarwelle. McCarty is Delarwelle's second-in-command as chief deputy of the Door County Sheriff's Department.

McCarty compiled an overall record of 34-10 (23-2 in league play) and took the Eagles to the postseason during all four of his seasons.

Before his arrival, Southern Door had not reached the playoffs since 2006.

Zuehlke was a lineman for the Gibraltar Vikings in high school but has since moved from Baileys Harbor to Sturgeon Bay.

He co-founded the Destroyers, based in Baileys Harbor, with partners Chris LeCloux and Shane Hills, all of whom had been semipro players in the region for years. Zuehlke is chief financial officer for the organization and a starting interior offensive lineman listed at 6-foot-5 and 335 pounds. Hills still plays for the team but has dropped out of the ownership group.

The Destroyers started in 2013, won a title in just their second season and then moved up a weight class in search of a new challenge, joining a tougher league of teams mostly in southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois. Despite the stiffer competition, the Destroyers reached the Mid-States Football League championship game in 2016.

Zuehlke is also a volunteer at Sturgeon Bay High School's powerlifting club team.

His daughters, junior Brenna and freshman Bria, are members of the team and Brenna won a state championship in her weight class this spring with a record lift total.

It is unclear how Zuehlke's coaching duties at Southern Door might affect any or all of these activities. But his hiring would mark the third straight time Southern Door has tabbed an ex-player from one of its current or former football rivals to head up its program.

McCarty played high school football at Sturgeon Bay, although he was linebackers coach for the Eagles before getting the top job and had been involved in the program at lower grades for years. His predecessor, younger brother Dan McCarty, also suited up for the Clippers and was the offensive coordinator of Sturgeon Bay's 2004 Division 4 state champions.

Dan McCarty, six years Pat's junior, resigned after one season at Southern Door to join the St. Norbert College coaching staff, where he's now the fourth-year head coach.

Before the McCarty brothers, Southern Door had been led for 23 seasons by Brent Claflin, an alumnus and an elementary teacher in the district.

Southern Door will bring back three seniors next fall who received all-conference mention in 2017, including all-district running back Derik LeCaptain, who totaled more than 1,100 yards on the ground and 1,441 total yards in '17. LeCaptain made the MONLP-Large first team at both running back and linebacker.

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Derik LeCaptain will return to the Southern Door football team next season with a new coach.(Photo: Tina M. Gohr/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)

Max Pierre also made the first team at linebacker and second team on the offensive line, while his teammate in the trenches, Alex Quigley, was a first-team pick on the offensive line. Another senior-to-be, Kyle Daoust, will be a second-year starter at quarterback. He was an honorable mention as a junior.

Daoust will be without his top target, first-team all-league wideout Sam Gerend, who will graduate this spring. Gerend also earned first-team honors as a defensive back.

Sturgeon Bay, the other Door County school that plays conventional 11-man football, is also searching for a head football coach following the resignation of Mike LeRoy. Sevastopol and Gibraltar high schools play eight-man football.

The Vikings made a change before the 2017 season, replacing former coach Pat Keehan with Scott Biemeret. So, with the two new hires in the southern half of the county, Biemeret, with just one year under his belt, will rank second in seniority among Door County's four football coaches.